This invention relates to restroom wall type stand-up stall urinal receptacle apparatus, and particularly in regards to features which may serve to impede the occurrence of an offensive splashback condition.
Accordingly, a search of American patents has revealed some limited activity in the area of anti-splashback considerations. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,018,966 shows faulty construction such as is commonly seen to this day, in that the one-piece receptor structure exhibits a somewhat protruding basin-lip with symmetrical right and left halfs provided with a wide opening and a substantially perpendicular and transversely recessed back-wall portion, while the top is setback somewhat from the vertically protruding sidewall portions. A similar configuration is also seen in later U.S. Pat. No. 2,147,588.
Next, U.S. Pat. No. 1,114,670 demonstrated what could well be the most thoughtfully devised construction patented to date, in that the inventor arranged the urinal as a corner-piece presumably as an adjunct to greater privacy, while the right and left hand vertical sidewalls actually wrap inward toward themselves. This wrap merges especially close as the receptor aperture approaches the floor region, where only a narrow vertical-slot aperture remains; the effect being to lessen "urine spatterings upon the shoes and lower trousers of the user, as well as an unsanitary condition around the immediate floor area". Unfortunately, the extremely enclosed urinal-cavity or chamber shape eventually itself results in poor hygienic conditions, since it is so enclosed as to make routine cleaning-maintenance a rather hit-and-miss procedure whereby scum begins to collect aggressively therein.
More recent urinal construction of some relevants is found in U.S. Pat. Nos. D258,682, D275,600, D281,270, D294,966, and D300,351; all of which are remarkably of the abbreviated wall-hung type, which have eliminated the lower floor extension entirely in effort to overcome the lower splashback problem at least. Of these, U.S. Pat. No. D294,966 by Kohler Co. attempts to alleviate the splashback problem to some extent by provision of a symmetrically formed v-shaped backwall convergence construction, which was interestingly also represented in the above mentioned 1912/Baker construction. It is worth mentioning that Kohler Co./USA currently advertises this as their Bardon.TM. "Anti-splash design" in their sales-catalogs.
Therefore, the inventor hereof believes he has devised a rather radical however attractive departure from established urinal receptor construction concepts, and so working in conjunction with Inventech/R&D-Co. of SanDiego refers to it as the "mistless" HYGENIX.TM.-Urinal; which shall now be well set forth in detail.